


I'd trade all my tomorrows (for a single yesterday)

by cissamione



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, Gen, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 03:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17418197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissamione/pseuds/cissamione
Summary: 25 December 2028'Vanessa rolls over and sees Charity still asleep, so she reaches over and shakes her shoulder, but Charity doesn’t react, and it’s then that Vanessa feels how cold Charity’s arm is through her silk pyjamas, that she insisted on wearing all through the winter. “Charity.” Vanessa says, her voice quavering as she lifts a hand to her wife’s cold cheek.'





	I'd trade all my tomorrows (for a single yesterday)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Kris Kristofferson's 'Me and Bobby McGee'
> 
> Fair warning - this is quite sad, so yeah, try and enjoy!

25 December 2028

Vanessa wakes up slowly to a fist banging on their bedroom door, and Chas’s voice shouting for Charity to hurry up. It was Christmas morning, and Charity had been lumped with receiving the drayman’s delivery again. Chas had learnt early on to knock and wait for the door to be opened after finding Charity and Vanessa _in flagrante_ _delicto_ more times than she cared to. By now, just after their ninth wedding anniversary, the whole family and more knew that when the door was closed, it was best not to open it unless you wanted to see something you didn’t want to, though Paddy still regularly walks in on them in various places and states of undress.

She rolls over and sees Charity still asleep, so she reaches over and shakes her shoulder, but Charity doesn’t react, and it’s then that Vanessa feels how cold Charity’s arm is through her silk pyjamas, that she insisted on wearing all through the winter. “Charity.” Vanessa says, her voice quavering as she lifts a hand to her wife’s cold cheek. “Charity, wake up.” She slides her hands back down to Charity’s shoulders and shakes her again. She’s never been much of a deep sleeper, not surprising after how much she’s been through, having to sleep with one eye open for most of her teenage years. Vanessa startles when Charity’s head lolls to one side, and she know before she doesn’t feel the blood pumping through her carotid artery under the soft skin of her neck. “ _ Charity, Charity, please _ .” Her voice comes out as a loud moan, and Chas pushes the door open when she hears it.

“Oh my god! Charity!” Chas rushes round to Charity’s side of the bed, stepping forwards then back, unsure of what to do as Vanessa collapses into sobs on Charity’s lifeless body. It doesn’t take long for the doorway to fill. Everyone is home for Christmas. Paddy is pulling Moses and Johnny away as Chas’s shaky hands call the ambulance and the drayman honks his horn impatiently, but Vanessa doesn’t notice any of the chaos until Marlon is pulling her away from Charity.

“No, no, don’t! I can’t leave her, let me stay with her, please, please, I can’t leave her.” Vanessa’s shouts dwindle to sobbing whispers as Marlon holds her tight while the paramedics examine her wife. Eventually, she is lead downstairs, to talk to the police while the undertakers take Charity away.

By now, the whole Dingle clan have arrived, piled around the bar drinking. Chas is sitting with Vanessa on the sofa, and through her tears, Vanessa can see Noah, Johnny, Moses, and Ryan slumped at the kitchen table. Debbie, Sarah, Jack, and Cain are there too, and she can hear everyone else in the bar. It doesn’t take long for news to spread, and soon she is surrounded by more people. Tracy and Frank, who hug her tight and tell her everything will be okay, when it so clearly won’t, Rhona and Pete, who bring the news that Ross is on his way to be with his son.

Vanessa drifts through the next few days. Lisa and Marlon keep the family fed as they grieve. Noah is sullen, withdrawn, acting much more like we did when Vanessa first started going out with Charity than the twenty-four year-old that he is. Debbie and Cain are keeping it together for Sarah and Jack, who are heartbroken at the loss of their Granny Charity, and Ryan is struggling with the loss of the mother he’d known for only ten years, and coping with a vodka bottle. Moses is angry, tight and ready for action, he wants to hurt whoever did this, but really, he knows no-one actually did this to them. Johnny, however, is silent and calm. He’s never been chatty, but no-one’s heard more than a word out of him for days.

Vanessa sees the grief of her family, but she doesn’t have the energy to do anything about it. Anyway, she reasons, Cain has Moira, Isaac, Kyle, and Matty to occupy him. Debbie, Sarah, Jack, and Noah have Joe up at Home Farm. Ryan has Irene and Dawn. Moses has Ross, Pete, and Rhona, and Johnny has Tracy and Frank. Chas has Paddy and Aaron, Zak and Lisa have each other. Webs of support and love and care, but Vanessa is missing her lynchpin, and it seems like her web has fallen apart. Chas and Paddy make her cups of tea and offer to talk, and cover her shifts at the surgery, but she is all alone as the kids all go elsewhere. Away from the place where their mother died and where Vanessa is like a ghost.

The funeral is awful, and all Vanessa can think as Harriet drones on is how much Charity would’ve hated it, but she’s too tired to make a scene. It seems like even being awake is tiring now. The church is full of people, Dingles, Woodfields, Bartons, Sugdens, Tates, Stocks, Kirks and Goskirks, and Vanessa hopes that Charity knew how much she was cared for, how many people were her family.

After the funeral, Vanessa make a conscious effort to shift her life back into gear. She tells everyone she’s fine, and she makes school lunches for Moses and Johnny like she always has, she works and makes animals better, and smiles and laughs as the months go by, but everyone can see, it doesn't reach her eyes. She’s fooling no-one, but no-one’s fool enough to say anything. Probably because they have an idea of the all-consuming grief that Vanessa is carrying with her, inside her, and they don’t want that burden for themselves, and Vanessa gets that. So she carries on carrying on.

It feels like no time at all, and infinity at the same time have passed. It’s Christmas again, and everyone’s tiptoeing around her, but she keeps a lid on it, and goes to Christmas with her boys at Wishing Well. In her head, she can hear what Charity would say to everything, the derisive comments she would make, or the sarky jokes, or the particular laugh or sound of exasperation. Sometimes, she says it out loud, instead of her own reaction, because she wants people, she wants their sons to remember Charity as more than the Woolpack’s landlady, the troubled troublemaker, the rape victim, the bitch she sometimes was, or the lousy mother she thought she was no matter what vanessa said otherwise. She wants them to remember the little things - the clever comments, and the affectionate touches, the little kindnesses she always tried to hide.

Occasionally though, she’ll slip up, and say something, an offhand comment. The boys will ask a question, and she’ll say, ‘ask Charity,’ and they’ll look at her like she’s a little bit mad, and sometimes she thinks she is, with Charity’s voice in her head, talking her to sleep every night, and distracting her from conversations. Charity’s purple silk dressing gown remains hanging on the back of their bedroom door, and Vanessa runs her hand over it every time she comes in or out, almost like a ritual.

More years pass, flowing, blending seamlessly into each other. Vanessa knows she’s not the woman she had been before, and she knows that everyone else notices, but the Ness she had been died with Charity that Christmas morning. Vanessa and Charity had both found themselves when they found each other, as cliche it sounded, it was true. Vanessa had softened Charity’s hard edges, and shown her how to believe in the amazing woman that she was. In return, Charity had given Vanessa an all-encompassing love, a family, and the confidence and pride to be herself.

Noah finally graduates veterinary school, and gets a job in Leeds and visits when he can, and he is slim and his eyes are Charity’s, and Vanessa can barely look him in the eye some days because of it. Moses and Johnny grow and grow, taller and taller, and they sink into teenage moodiness and messy rooms. Johnny is tall, Kirin’s height, but he is slimmer, and his hair and eyes are Vanessa’s, though his skin is easily darker than hers. He is quiet, shy, and clever, and Vanessa knows that Charity is what he needs to flourish, because she’s always known how to get him out of his own head and into the real world where he can’t over-analyse things. Moses is nearly a spitting image of his father, built like a Barton, all muscle, except he’s grown his hair long like Ryan’s still is, but it looks so much like Charity’s that sometimes Vanessa sees the back of his head and thinks its Charity, and the way her heart soars and crashes is so much it’s own type of pain that Vanessa is used to now, after a couple of years. He is the polar opposite of Johnny, through they remain joined at the hip, Moses a protector for his sensitive brother, angry and emotional, prone to outbursts and door-slamming. Vanessa lets him act out, because she knows how he feels, she wishes she could do the same, but she doesn’t for the boys’ sake.

Johnny and Moses are both bigger than her now, and it’s been five years. Vanessa still wears her wedding ring, and Charity’s is on a chain around her neck, because she always said that she hated the idea of being buried, so they’d cremated her, but Vanessa couldn’t let go of her wife’s ring.

Noah is visiting, because the boys are headed off to university tomorrow, and they’ve had a big family dinner, and now they’re sitting down to watch Titanic, because Johnny, quiet lad that he is, insisted on it. Vanessa knows it’s his way of having some piece of Charity with them for their last night at home, but she’s not watching the film, she can’t, so she’s daydreaming, and that drifts a little into actual dreaming, and then she opens her eyes, and the sounds of the film and the boys chattering fade out.

Charity is standing there, behind the couch, by the door. He golden hair is tumbling over her shoulder, and she hasn’t aged a day. She’s wearing that silk top she wore to Ryan’s twenty-eighth, with the same black blazer and trousers, and she looks fantastic, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright. Her beautiful green gaze rolls over their boys, a soft, proud smile on her lips as she meets Vanessa’s eye and holds out her left hand for her, ring on her finger. “Charity,” Vanessa whispers, the name a worshipful plea, and Charity nods, pink lips breaking into a grin as Vanessa gets to her feet and makes her way past the boys.

Charity’s hand is warm, and her grip is tight as Vanessa slides her hand into Charity’s. She can feel the blood beating beneath her skin, almost hear Charity’s heart thumping in time with her own. “Hiya, babe.” Charity says quietly, and Vanessa has missed this so much. The feel of Charity’s touch, gentle and firm, the sound of her voice, husky and sweet, rising and falling over the cadences of the words. “I’m so proud of you, my tiny blonde rocket woman. You’ve done so well with our boys, I knew you would.”

Vanessa nods, tears falling freely down her cheeks. Charity lifts a hand and swipes them away, the pads of her thumbs soft against her cheeks. “Don’t cry now, Ness, eh babe?” She takes a step back, and Vanessa’s hand clenches around Charity’s, unwilling to let her go again. “Come with me?” Charity asks, already tugging Vanessa towards the door, and Vanessa goes willingly, so willingly. She doesn’t looks back at the boys, though she hears them calling for her, faintly, because as much as she adores them Charity is the half of her that’s been missing for too long, so she lets Charity lead her through the pub one last time, watches as the blonde runs a wistful hand along the bar. Somehow, Vanessa knows this is it, but she doesn’t mind. It’s not that she doesn’t care, because she does, she loves her family, but she knows they’ll hold each other up, support each other, and she’s been drifting for so long without Charity. They stop by the door, and their eyes meet again. Charity pushes it open, and holds it, guiding Vanessa through with a hand on the small of her back, and the door swings closed behind them.

***

Noah’s relationship with his mum has always been difficult. She was inconsistent and forgetful, and definitely  _ not _ a pinterest mum, or any other positive mother stereotype. She had bad habits of palming her children off on other when she needed or wanted to get something done, and she had tried to sell two of her children, and had the other two when she was a teenager. But beneath all of her faults, Noah knew she had always loved them, Debbie, Moses, Ryan, Johnny, and himself. He had only really begun to realise that when Vanessa came into their lives, calming Charity down enough for her to be able to ground herself, and most of her mistakes turned out to be misguided attempts to do what was best for her children, because she always thought she was the worst thing for them.

It was Ness who showed Charity that she was a good mother, and gave her that confidence and trust in herself. Ness who encouraged Noah and Charity to rebuild their bond. Sometimes Noah hated her for that, because if she hadn’t joined their family, it was likely that he would have let his relationship with his mum go completely, but he wouldn’t have hurt so much when she died.

Then it was Ness who was there, holding the family together as Charity’s family grieved in their own ways. Noah could see that without Ness, Moses would have done something stupid long ago, Cain too probably, and Chas would be a mess.

So Noah keeps coming back to Emmerdale, visiting his family regularly, and soon enough, he’s preparing to drive his brothers to university. They watch Titanic on the last night in the Woolpack together, and he remembers how this film always made his mother cry. Johnny and Moses probably remember that too, because Ness was always ribbing Mum about it. Both boys are half watching, half playing on their phones. Ness isn’t watching at all, she’s staring off into the distance, and next time he looks, she’s fallen asleep in the armchair from Tug Ghyll she insisted on squeezing into the Woolpack.

“Charity.” Ness’s voice is quiet but all three of them hear it, their eyes flicking over to her, asleep on the couch. They've all heard her nightmares, the way she screams for Charity in the night, but she’s never fallen asleep like this in front of them and dreamt about her.

“Mum!” Moses says loudly, trying to wake her up, but Noah puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Leave it, Moz.” He says quietly, but Moses listened, slumping back against the couch from where he is sitting on the floor, staring sullenly at the tv. Noah looks over to Ness again, and he sees her eyes are open, and there are tear tracks on her cheeks that weren’t there a minute ago.

He stands up and crosses over to her, squatting next to the armchair. “Ness?” He asks softly, ignoring Moses’ glare, but she doesn’t respond. He knows both Moses and Johnny are watching him carefully, worried now, so he tires again. “Ness?”

“Mum!” Moses says again louder, but she doesn’t move. Noah looks at her closer and realises that she isn’t moving. At all. Not breathing. He lifts his hand slowly to her wrist, using his body to hide his actions from his brothers. His fingers are trembling, but he knows that’s not the reason he feels nothing under Ness’s soft skin.

“Moz, call an ambulance.” He orders, because giving him something to do will hopefully keep him calmer. “She’s not breathing.” He steps back, his hand falling to Johnny’s shoulder as the younger boy begins to cry.

Noah pulls out his own phone and texts Debbie and Ryan, then Tracy and Frank. He sends Johnny upstairs to get Chas and Paddy, and it seems like no time before the house is full of family, and Noah steps back and allows Cain to take the lead. There’s a fleeting thought that he is well and truly an orphan now, just like Ryan has been since Irene died last year, but then he looks around and sees Cain and Moira, Debbie and Joe, Chas and Paddy, Sam and Lydia, and he knows that just because he doesn’t have any parents left, it doesn’t mean he has no family, no one to care for and to care for him, because he does and they are rallying around him and his brothers now. 

Tracy is holding Johnny as he cries, and there are tears slipping down her cheeks too. Moira is with Moses as he rages and vents, and eventually she takes him into her arms and lets him sob too. Lydia is making tea in the kitchen and Samson is handing it round to everyone. Together, they make sure no-one has a cold mug in their hand all night as the ambulance, police, and undertakers come and go. Marlon brings food when he comes with Jessie and April. Joe hold Debbie as she cries too, Jack leaning into them, and Sarah sits with Belle in silence, holding hands tightly. Frank and Megan are close together in a corner, they are both old now, but his daughter has gone before him, and that is never right. Ryan and Paddy are sat at the kitchen table, Chas between them, comforting them as best she can, because Ness was one of Paddy’s closest friends, and she always stuck up for Ryan, for all of them. Cain and Samson manage the authorities, and the knocks at the door, turning Victoria and Matty away when they come for work, and putting up the closed sign on the pub’s front door, and the vet’s, where Sam comes back from with a teary Rhona, Pete and Leo in tow.

As the sun rises on the new day, Noah looks around at his family. The Dingles took Vanessa in as one of their own with gusto, and Vanessa’s friends and family became part of the extended Dingle Clan, and now half the village is in the Woolpack’s back room, keenly feeling the loss of Vanessa Woodfield, local vet.

And Noah wouldn’t have it any other way as Samson tugs the cooling mug from his hand and replaces it with one of Lydia’s strong brews, passing to do the same trade with Debbie with a warm hand on Noah’s shoulder.

His family is a mish-mosh of people and relationships and children, but what matters isn’t how complicated the family tree is, but how much they love each other, and even though Charity and Vanessa are dead now, they will carry on, and be a credit to their mothers, sisters, daughters, cousins.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah! I hope it's not too sad! please leave comments and kudos and tell me what you thought!


End file.
